Khashoggi Widow Calls for Transcript of Trump-MBS Call

The widow of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Friday called for the release of the transcript of a 2019 phone call that President Trump had with Mohammed bin Salman, joining Democratic lawmakers who are raising questions about whether Trump personally benefitted from his embrace of the Saudi crown prince. Hanan Elatr Khashoggi appeared on Capitol Hill on Friday morning on the heels of Trump's dismissal of US intelligence findings that the crown prince most likely had culpability in the October 2018 slaying of her husband, per the AP. Trump also lavished the Saudi ruler this week with some of Washington's highest honors for a foreign dignitary, deepening the business and military relationship between the two nations.

Saudi intelligence officials and a forensic doctor killed and dismembered Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018. "There is no justification to kidnap him, torture him, to kill him and to cut him to pieces," Hanan Elatr Khashoggi said Friday during an emotional news conference. "This is a terrorist act." The demand in Congress for the Trump administration to release the call transcripts is being led by Rep. Eugene Vindman, a freshman Democrat from Virginia who was deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council during Trump's first term. Vindman, who has reviewed the transcript of the phone call with Prince Mohammed, declined to go into specifics of the classified document on Friday, but he said it used "the terminology of quid pro quo, the ensuing benefits that the president reaped."

He called the transcript of the call with the Saudi ruler "shocking." "The Kashoggi family and the American people deserve to know what was said on that call," he added. It's unlikely that the Trump administration would voluntarily release the 2019 call transcript with Prince Mohammed. Dem lawmakers, who are in the minority, also have little power to force its release. They also stayed away from speculating whether Trump's relationship with Prince Mohammed would be grounds for another impeachment inquiry if they retake the House next year. Still, they said the interaction was emblematic of the direction that Trump is leading the country. "We are being drawn in the direction of authoritarian monarchy, in tyranny right now," said Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat. More here.